07/23/2007 Dogs And Dawgs

07/23/2007 Dogs And Dawgs

Listening to the radio on the way to work on Friday, the announcers were running down the list of accusations leveled at popular athlete Michael Vick. They are reading from a 19 page document innocently released by the police detailing the charges against Vick.

The charges are gruesome and don't need to be recounted in full here. But I would point out that one of the announcers stupidly said that Vick would have been better off if he were accused of Human Fighting. When I remind all of you that a couple of the charges included having a “rape stand” for breeding the animals and killing the ones that don't measure up in the ring by slamming them to the pavement, I know you'll understand that if he were doing this to humans then it would be a historic disaster on the level of the Holocaust. Further, the announcers were incredulous when callers began to point out the similarities between this case and the recent case involving the Duke University Lacrosse players, who were accused of rape and promptly convicted in the media, only to be exonerated by DNA evidence. None of the grotesque stories they read off indicate any special evidence that Vick was guilty.

Then at work, as I'm running machines, I'm reading an article in Newsweek about the other side of the world. In the article, “Where Radicals Call The Shots” in the July 16^th issue of US News And World Report, Philip Smucker writes:

“In town, you will not find Hollywood or Bollywood thrillers for sale, but vendors hawk DVDs, mostly al Qaeda productions, showing the beheadings of traitors.”

Isn't that nice, to know the two sides of the world are so alike? In the west, we present spectacle in the form of words, justified by moral judgement. In the Middle East, it's to present the consequences of betraying an organization that fights the perceived oppression of the West. In both cases, people crave spectacle. And in both cases, the spectacle has to be presented in a way that is congruent with the values of the culture. Mr. Smucker does not tell us what is in the adults section of these vendor's operations (one must think that Paris Hilton is alive and well there), so one begins to wonder why al Qaeda decided to upgrade to DVD from VHS in the first place. But the whole thing is a good demonstration of my comparison between saying you're right and the other guy is wrong and saying you don't have an accent.

Here in the West, we do like to use words to present the worst of our images. In order to Jive with our values, we must either use words or present the spectacle as fiction. Also, we often bring up these words in the context of making a moral judgement. In the Middle East, it is enough to hamper the quest for freedom against the west. But in both cases, the need for spectacle persists. It just takes different forms. Perhaps that's how we can forgive our dim friends in front of the mics. We will never stop craving spectacle; if they don't give it to us, we'll find someone who will. They really couldn't be expected to learn from the past, they are prisoners of the present needs of the audience. What moral dilemmas exist in Pakistan I cannot say, but I hope that there are some who object to gaining pleasure from the brutal murders of others, as well as some idea that this is not what God, or Allah, ever wanted for us.